Personal Assistant

I have a personal assistant. It isn’t a person, and I don’t pay it (personally), but without it I have proven time and time again that my less-than-stellar memory will cause me to be unaccountably less productive.

I woke up this morning at eight am, after having gone to bed at…oh…five thirty this morning. (No, don’t worry, it’s ok. I slept until four pm the previous day, so it balances out.) I was groggy, but there was work to do. The problem was, other than my immediately noticing that it was raining and considering how that would impact what I needed to do today, I had absolutely no memory of what it was I’d gotten up this early to accomplish. Then, at 8:05 on the dot, my personal assistant said, “beep?” I looked at it, wondering if perhaps it knew what I needed to accomplish today. And, sure enough, laid out in plain English on the home screen of my Android phone, it said, “Mail package early morning.”

That was it! That was why I was up so early today. I had a package for work that needed to be boxed up and shipped out as soon as possible. Happy that I now knew what I was doing, I boxed up the shipment, stuck the pre-printed shipping label on it, and headed for the door.

“Beep?” said my personal assistant (I think I might need to name it soon). A quick glance at my phone showed that I was about to forget something vital – my daily pills. You see, I’m anemic. This means I have a deficiency of iron in my body – be it from diet, my weight, or what, I can’t deny that when I don’t take my iron pill every day (preferably exactly 24 hours apart, because as I’ve learned, an overlap of iron suppliments makes me feel just as exhausted as if I hadn’t taken it at all, and I can lose several hours to the feeling of leaden limbs and a sluggish mind), I have no energy and barely any ability to function. In fact, breathing seems to take up an insane amount of effort and concentration. And for someone who enjoys accomplishing many things throughout the day, that simply will NOT do.

So, in response to my assistant’s question, I headed into the kitchen and took my pills. Iron is only one of many suppliments I take every day to keep my body in functional (I won’t say “tip top,” as I’m rather far from the top right now, unless it’s of weight charts. :P ) and productive condition. It’s also Monday, meaning that I needed to refill my seven day pill container (makes remembering what I’m taking so much easier if I don’t have to hunt for the pills) and set things up for the rest of the week. I was very happy while doing this – several times in the last few weeks I’d been careless with my pills and lost several days worth of productive time to exhaustion and a mind that felt like it was stuck in molasses – and it IS January.

Having taken my suppliments, I once again grabbed the box and headed for the back door. “Beep?” said my personal assistant. I checked it. Oh! Right! I was going to the post office – I should grab my Netflix disk, too, while I’m at it. Thank you again, personal assistant! I grabbed it, fumbled with my umbrella, the heavy box, the Netflix envelope, and my purse, and headed out to my car. Other than having to rescue the Netflix envelope from a puddle along the way (oops), and having to vault over another puddle in order to get into my car without submerging my leg up to my ankle in mud, the morning went well and my assistant didn’t page me again.
Until this afternoon.

I had just come home from working out (started a new regimen today, hoping it does me good), and gotten settled at my desk. A series of questioning beeps sounded while I was concentrating on doing art commissions, and I stared at where my phone laid in front of me. What could have POSSIBLY gotten my assistant so worked up? A quick check made my eyes go wide – overdue notification. I had never put my laundry away two days ago. Oh, and while I was at it, didn’t I know that I should do the dishes? Oh, and what about the recycling bin? It should go out to the collection bin before it overflows onto the kitchen floor, don’t you think? By the time you’re done with all that the cats should probably be fed.

I’d like to say I sprang into action and flew through those chores with the greatest of ease, but I really can’t. See, I’d just worked out. There was absolutely nothing “easy” about the way I was feeling. However, the laundry was already overdue, and the red flag on my assistant’s screen spurred me into action with a feeling of urgency akin to hearing the “Red Alert” klaxon in Star Trek. The laundry must be put away! The fate of the universe may hinge on it! Well, not really, but it’s funny the things geeks tell themselves mentally in order to spur motion when all they want is to relax at their desks.

I got up, headed through the kitchen to the laundry room, but was stopped by the small pile of dishes by the sink. That was on my assistant’s list, too, and here I am in front of it…I’ll just do it now! So I washed, dried, and put away the dishes. Then I cleaned the counters (widely acknowledged in this household as part of the “doing the dishes” chore, for multiple reasons – not the least of which being that when we don’t do that, we have ant invasions. Lost a battalion of cookies to them last week, it was a horrible tragedy). I finished with that and finally moved on to the laundry room, retrieving my laundry that had been patiently waiting in the dryer since Saturday evening (thank goodness I don’t treat my pets like I treat my clothes).

Clothes folded and put away, I returned the baskets to the laundry room, and started to leave the kitchen. This time, it wasn’t my personal assistant who reminded me of what intended action I had forgotten, but an insistant, “Meeerrroooww?” from the orange tabby who had been following me on my multiple trips through and to the kitchen, hoping that at any point I would stop and feed him. How he knew I was returning to my desk having forgotten to do so and that this was the perfect time to insist I do it NOW, I have no idea. Ziggy isn’t the smartest cat, but when it comes to food, he’s an Einstein (even if he seems to think that everything is some different kind of chicken). I looked at the clock – it was fifteen minutes to when they were technically supposed to get dinner, but I was in here NOW, and as sore as I was, I knew I wouldn’t want to come back in fifteen minutes to do something I could do now. So I fed the cats, washed the spoon I used, recycled the can, and THEN headed to my desk.

I sat down, happily pulled out my assistant, and began checking off the things I’d accomplished to avoid any further Red Alerts. However, when I finished, one thing was still staring me in the face.

“Blog – Due 3 Days Ago”

I stared at it, wondering how I’d missed that in the flurry of things going on, then dutifully opened up Word and began to type. Where would I be without my assistant? Well, not here, for one thing. This wouldn’t have been written. :P So here’s hoping that in the future, my assistant will help keep me on track and we won’t miss too many more blogs.

On that note, soon my new series, Inside Animal Emotions, will start being posted. I’m trying to get many of the posts written before I start the series so that they can be updated simply and cleanly on post days. Yes, this blog is still on a Friday schedule. No, that hasn’t changed. And no, I probably won’t stop being spastic any time soon. You’ll thank me for it later.

Note: My personal assistant consists of the Android Apps:
1. Alarm Clock Plus (for general “wake up” alarms as well as other random ones for specific things)

2. Tasks N Todos Pro (a widget on my home screen that syncs to my Google Tasks and allows me to easily check off chores and other items as they’re completed, as well as see the next upcoming 3 items on the task list)

3. KeepTrack Pro (a program that allows you to set up multiple yes/no questions as well as creating graphs from the data it collected so you can look at something and have a good idea of how long you’ve been consistant, among other things).

Blog + Updates = Issues

So there hasn't been a post from me in a very, very long time. Yeah, I'm aware of this. This is partially due to the fact that thanks to a wordpress update, I can't seem to get into my site through anything other than the android mobile app on my phone. This has made posting and cross-posting blogs a bit difficult and it wasn't until today and some help from Nyx Goldstone that I finally realized I could pull it off. It just takes a bit more potchkeying than I'm used to.

Anyway! On to the actual update!

A couple of posts back, I blogged a request for donations to help me get my art back up and underway. As of yesterday, this has finally paid off as I got together enough money to get my software and hardware and am now the proud owner of a new Bamboo Connect tablet! I did some practice drawings yesterday in photoshop and let me tell you, it feels SO GOOD to be able to art again!

I owe a few people commissions now, and a couple of thank-you-gifts, but once I clear my commissions list I will be open and offering more types of commissions than ever before!

January is the month of Prosperity, and I see it everywhere I go, it seems. Starting with my return to the ability to release the art that has been locked up inside of me for years, and continuing into a prosperous new year and all the possibilities it entails. I'll be blogging more frequently again as I move along through this year, and eventually I'll get the rest of the story of my roadtrip from last year out as well (that's a promise!), but before I can do that I have to be able to get into my website through normal means, as I can't post my photo galleries to the blog without being able to enter the site on my computer rather than my phone. So right now that's still a bit of a roadblock.

In other news, randomly at about six am this morning, I regained my positivity and my happy after it being missing for...well, quite some time. I'm going to be working out regularly, getting my body in shape (and getting rid of the edema in my legs that's been caused by alternating colds and asthma attacks not allowing me to get up and move around enough lately), and working out always makes me feel good. I'm working on a life-schedule so I have time to take care of all the things I want to every day.

I had a strange epiphany while playing The Sims 3 (I want the Pets expansion SO BAD) the other day. When I used to play The Sims 2, I always played with a cheat. I'd never been able to balance the Sim's need for rest and food with all their other desires. I played through a whole week in Sims 3 without a cheat and for the first time in my life I had the realization that The Sims is very realistic for a REASON. I had to get my little person into a routine that allowed her time to get a full night's sleep, to eat at least twice a day (I say at least because I'm fairly certain she ate at work for lunch, but I didn't "see" that), and to take care of her household and personal chores, while still having time to work on her writing and other fun things she wanted to do. As I played through this week I realized that what I needed to do for myself is exactly what I was doing for this Sim that was based on me.

So thanks to Google Tasks and a related app for my phone to help me keep track, I've put myself on a schedule. Not random alarms that I'll shut off and not remember what they were supposed to be for, but actual CHECK boxes that lead me through what I need to do on a regular basis. But I'm not making the mistake I've made so many times before - I'm not writing down EVERY LITTLE THING that I need to do every day, to the point that my to-do list becomes overwhelming and I start my lazy pattern of shirking EVERYTHING for feeling overwhelmed. No, this is a new year and this is a new me, and from now on I'm getting this RIGHT.

Thanks to Lona, every month I have something new to meditate upon to help me keep my positive and my happy. I will control when I go to bed, and I will NOT allow random second-winds to keep me up until six in the morning and throw off my pattern for weeks at a time. I will have a cup of coffee when I feel like I'm flagging, and I WILL eat more than once a day. I will be eating less salt, and drinking more water. I will make time each day to work on artwork and commissions. I will NOT force myself to work on something until it becomes something I no longer want to do - I will want to work on it as long as I work on it, and I will work on it as long as I want to, to paraphrase Grandpa's normal toast. (May you live as long as you want to - and want to as long as you live.)

So hello 2012! You are going to be an amazing year, and I can't wait to see what you bring! Prosperity! Love! Charity! Passion! Sentiment! And SO much more!